Friday 4 April 2014

Freeview film of the day : friday 4th of April

Michael Clayton (2007 114min.) [BBC2 11.05pm]

Conspiracy thriller starring George Clooney, Tilda Swinton and Tom Wilkinson, and featuring Sydney Pollack. Michael Clayton is a troubleshooter for a top-ranking New York law firm embroiled in a multibillion dollar lawsuit. With personal troubles - debt and divorce - playing on his mind, Clayton is asked to find Arthur Edens, a colleague involved in the lawsuit, whose behaviour has become increasingly erratic. But Arthur has decided to stop taking his medication and is unwilling to co-operate.

As the film opens Clooney's seen at work advising one of his firm's clients following a traffic accident; he's called away by an emergency phone call: one of the senior partners (Arthur Edens- Tom Wilkinson) appears to be undergoing a mental breakdown and Clayton is needed to resolve the ensuing chaos.

It transpires that Arthur has spent several years working to defend a chemical company against a multi billion dollar class-action suit brought be people who believe their new product has seriously damaged their health.

And the film plays out from there...... Clooney/Clayton is dragged further and further into the conspiracy that Edens/Wilkinson is involved in and as he does so comes to understand more about the nature of the case and the pressures that his colleague was working under. As he moves slowly closer to the truth it becomes clear that someone is very determined to prevent him from uncovering some significant evidence.

In bald outline this approach to the legal drama will be very familiar to anyone who's watched TV over the past decade or so, especially the three series of the superior US show "Damages" which worked in much the same sort of area.

However, while the story is (over) familiar and littered with genre cliches, the film works perfectly well - probably because of the ability of the actors in the main roles - Clooney, Wilkinson and Tilda Swinton paying the rent as lead counsel for the petro-chemical giant.

There's also a nice enlarged cameo from Sydney Pollack as the senior partner at Clayton's firm.


Clooney's problem as an actor, which slightly unbalances the first half of this film, is that he has such a clearly defined screen image as a charming, well meaning, wise-cracking leading man that it's difficult to believe the proposition that he's an amoral louse with no shred of conscience.

It's what we are asked to believe of him here as we were in Up In The Air (2009) and The American (2010) and, as with those films, there's a lack of conviction in the part as it soon becomes obvious that Clooney's character is nowhere near as wholly black as he's at first painted- fairly quickly allowing us to glimpse his inner George despite the outer veneer of slick venality.

Clooney seems to be suffering the same problem as Cary Grant did at the height of his fame : his obvious acting ability being obscured by his looks, his established on-screen persona and his off screen fame and reputation; it would be nice to see him get his teeth into a wholly irredeemable character once in a while.


"Michael Clayton" is a well made, nicely structured and strongly acted piece which, though very short on surprises and having a wholly predictable narrative is certainly entertaining enough while it's playing. Clooney and Swinton are engaging in their roles and Wilkinson is, as ever, solid and dependable.

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